This weekend, God taught me quite a profound lesson.

As a group of 'Formettes and their leader', we went away to 'Woodadvent' camping barn in Exmoor, a couple of hours away. It is a big 3 storey stone cottage as part of a big working farm, with a log burner which provided a little bit of warmth (but more smoke) and raised wooden platforms round the edge of each wall to sleep on. The idea of the weekend was to spend some time 'bonding' and doing some stuff with Bill on personality.

The weekend included many humouerous and interesting times including:
· silly games (sheep and sheepong – don't ask, but I never want to hear those two words again!)
· wearing four layers of clothing, hats, rugs and sleeping bags and hot water bottles etc to get through both nights and days. It was a chilly one, but we survived (just).
· Bill getting intensely lost upon his arrival at the farm and ending up off-roading in his ford focus!
· Finding out I’m part of only 2% of the female population in the UK, being a INTP in the Meyers Briggs test.
· writing worship songs together.
· panicking that we were all going to die of carbon monoxide poisoning from the log burner which was kicking out rather a lot of smoke at 1am. Amazing what middle of the night irrational logic can tell you!!!

However through all of this I managed to glean something pretty amazing. For years I have learnt about being a leader. I have been taught (and have taught) every class on 'leadership' under the sun by people who obviously thought they could see 'leadership potential' in me. I thought coming into being the course leader of Form that I would have the perfect opportunity of being able to put it into practice again, now that I was a bit more 'sorted out' than I was when in the same kind of role before.

Interestingly (and perhaps predictably) I have found that all the knowledge in the world can't make your heart and spirit right too! How much have I spent time telling other people that and how much is it true that we are the last to really understand what we spend most of our time telling other people! Last night I had just about reached the end of my tether. I had spent 2 pretty full-on and totally intensive weeks with these 6 lovely people who have given up 9 months of their life to do the course and being a classic introvert I desperately needed space. I got grouchy and resentful and snappy and desperately wanted to run away. I was unreasonable and probably quite unhelpful.

I had spent some time sitting in a field with a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys on the Sunday morning trying to clear my head and asking God what he was saying to me for today and didn't really seem to hear anything. Later on in the evening, however, when tom and I were talking about how the weekend had gone and what we thought God had got in store for these people, tom pointed out how I needed to a) apologise for my behaviour towards them, b) learn to how to get re-energised through these people and through God when I'm with these people. I was pretty cut to the core, because those are such hard things for me to do but also because they are so true. As Tom put on Sheryl Crow's 'No-one said it would be easy' which he thought I needed to listen to (!), I felt God speaking right into my heart and talking to me in his kind, convicting and yet thoroughly serious way about the nature of being a leader. He talked about how it's not about being the bossy one in charge who can organise things and people; that although you can help them become who he's made them to be by putting them through a course and helping them work on what you can prophetically see God pointing out; but instead it is to be the humble one who serves. I reflected on how I'd even kept checking that I was helping with cooking and washing up etc so that I was serving them and that they would therefore pick up on how leaders should serve them. I realised that he was talking so much more about being the servant who lays down their life (comforts, need for sleep and isolation, need to be right, need to be in charge and in control) for those they are leading. I suddenly started to more understand what was going on when Jesus washed his disciples feet and felt God talking about how much he loved and valued these people and their development and that as their 'leader' I was HIS servant, at his beck and call to do everything and anything he asked me to in order to help them grow, even if this meant laying aside my wants and perceived needs when he asked me to. I'm not saying that he wouldn't want me to rest and replenish alone or that I shouldn't take an active role in bossing them around (everyone needs bossing around at some point, it shows where they are proud!!), but when he's calling me to answer a need, in this case, one to be discipled, I need to be prepared to be uncomfortable to do it. This may not sound like a big deal and for those of you reading this who are wisened leaders I can hear you thinking, ah yes, that old chestnut, but it is feeling like a rather fundamental lesson, a deep profound change that needs to be implanted into my heart from God before I can go on. My life is God's and as the old Vineyard adage goes, I really do need to be change in His pocket to be spent as he desires. I am no longer my own, but belong to Him.

Interestingly when we were at Badger House earlier this year with all of the other Form centre leaders, one of the things that spoken prophetically over me was the need to do the things that I felt uncomfortable in, in order to demonstrate to them how to do it. I had presumed that this would be things like going out onto the streets to pray for people (lord, please no!) but I think it's starting at a much more profound level. So now I have the rather humble task ahead of me of apologising to those who I am meant to be leading for not being Godly towards them. It feels so hard but so good.

Needless to say I am thankful that God has showed me this right at the start of this year before I mess the guys up too much. And it feels so good that it's a God-humbling-me thing rather than me thinking I should be doing something different thing. Surely only then, when it comes from the heart and the spirit, can I have any impact on anyone else…

When I was out sitting on my hill this morning, one of the dogs from the farm came up with me and as soon as we hit the big, open, freshly ploughed fields, he went nuts chasing after all of the grouse and other game birds wandering around. It was amazing to watch as he had so much fun and dashed around like a lunatic. Then out of the long storks of some cabbages that hadn't yet been picked, he came shooting out and bounded over with a grouse actually in his mouth, still faintly alive. Now normally this to me would be totally gutting and I would feel really sad for the bird. This time however I could do nothing but stand in admiration of this dog who was so fully living as he was intended to live and doing only what he knew to do. I was in awe (sadly this was slightly broken as he then stood expectantly beside me obviously waiting for me to do something and I wasn't sure if I was meant to pat him on the back and send him on his way with his prize or take the now dead bird from his mouth as his gift to me. Instead I kind of praised him and walked him back down to the farm where his kind master could deal with it all much more effectively!). On reflection maybe THIS is what God was talking to me about – being the kind of person who could only do what they were made to do, which in my case it to do whatever God wants from me, to help usher in His kingdom here and now, in whichever way he would chose that to happen. And what pleasure the dog got from it and what a reward when he got a big pat and praise. The phrase 'well done, good and faithful servant' comes to mind…

oh dear. it's beena long time... Just a sign of much busy-ness. Form is starting next week and so i've been pretty manic trying to get all of that stuff ready. It's amazing how much paperwork it can breed! But we have 5 people coming and we have homes for them all and a pretty good syllabus planned until Christmas and so not much is left to do aside from plan a few sessions and then we're done! Hooray!!!

What else? Not much really, just trying to figure out how best to give money away, how to help people who are mouring, how to react when heaps of my friends are pregnant and it's not the right time for us yet etc etc. Interesting times.

The whole money thing is such a big one for me. Being a trustee of God's resources is a hard job sometimes in trying to figure out what he would best have you do with it. There are billions of starving and very underprivilidged people in the world and yet i have so much. Could it be i have so much so i can give them some (like jacqui Pullinger says, if you see them then you have to do something about it. how many people don't see what's going on in the world as they have allowed themselves to become hard to it. why do i see so much? how can so many people drive along my road and not see the handful of prostitutes who hang out on the corners or in dark shadows? has god given me 'eyes to see' which i need to do something about, or do they others just see them but ignore them?). Or should i look to more immediate surroundings? Or should i try and fight unjust world systems, the cause of much of it. Then again, you have to think too about the nature of poverty and if an ease of that problem is what people really need - surely they need jesus more. How can you give someone something and talk to them about Jesus without them thinking they have to accept Jesus in order to get the gift you're giving. Then if you don't say anything and just give the gift, when do you say the words? I do feel that eventually the words do need to be said. As much as people come along with the 'preach the gospel at all times and if necessary use words' thing, i still can't help but see everywhere in the bible jesus doing things and then explaning why. everywhere...
(not sure i want advice on this one as so many people have so many opinions about it. I'm looking to see what god has for me, today and this week and then the month then the year then fo rmy life. I think he's quite personal about some things...)

so, it's a time of busy-ness and also of many questions. My brain seems to be in hyper-drive!!!

Finally i seem to be almost up to speed with getting around. I still can't walk for ages or do any running yet but i can get around without it hurting most of the time, so that's good!

Only 3 weeks now until Form officially starts. Slightly scary as i still have so much to do, but as it all came together at the last minute last time, i'm sure it will do so again - hopefully with a slightly larger margin of time between finishing prep and starting the running of it all than before!

Last week i met with Sarah, the person who heads up Grandmas in Bristol. It's a charity that helps out families who have someone with AIDs in it. We had a really great time talking about the poor, simplicity, money, the fundamentality of prayer and God's heart of compassion. All things reallyon my heart and mind at the moment. I think i may finally be starting to be able to take a longer term perspective on working things out, not needing to hvaing everythign sorted out now and for it to be fine that things are how i would ideally like them to be around me straight away. It's a good, maturing humbling process i think!

Our garden is now on the road through to autumn and the plants are producing the end bits of their crops. I have loved it all and am totally looking forward to digging all the last roots up, spreading manure down and planing seeds for next year. Tom and I have discovered a mutual love for broad beans so, along with hopefully some other beans, we are going to have the soil with the best nitrogen-fixed root nodules in the world!!

Gosh - a long time since i've written anything. I've been out of action following a little operation for a hernia in hospital. It was such good timing to have to lie at home on the sofa all day. Instead of the usual crappy daytime tv, i got to watch the whole of the olympics. Great!! I loved every second of it and even made Tom watch it. He got bored quite quickly... I even managed to get praying properly in a routine again by the end of the 2 weeks.I've been a bit slack recently.

Being ill was an interesting experience. It's only when you're ill i think that you really lose all of the usual pretense and calm that you portray to others and your true self comes out. So as the weeks went on and i let go of more of 'me', i realised underneath what i was really like - quite snappy, selfish and pretty self-absorbed. I'm not saying this in a put-myself-down type of way, it really is the honest truth. the good thing, the best thing, though is that i also realised and came to see more that God sees this all along and still loves me and heals and delivers me from the stupid rubbish that i have in my life, and has done in astounding ways recently. I guess at those times i am humbled, loved and challenged all at once. I think that in that place you start to realise a) that you can do nothing to change yourself, however hard you try, as that is God's job (i've been trying for years, believe me!) and b) that you need to put yourself into a place where God can change you. THAT is your responsibility. You can't change yourself, but God can. Your job then is to read the bible, dwell in god, worship him, try and keep tabs on what you're watching, thinking, doing etc, so that it builds up the person who God has made you to be, rather than trying to change the old person. God does the work and we allow him. through doing those thigns and the classic spiritual disciplines, we are able to realise who's in charge and make space for Him to do it.

On another good note, today i had a call from Sweden saying that 3 people want to come over to do the Form course with us here at Church. So now we have enough numbers to run the course and life is going to change considerably! I am so excited!

We also harvested our first sweetcorn on Sunday. Man, they were SO good. We roasted them on our chiminea and ate them with garlic and chilli butter on. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

well, after a week of doing daytime fasting, i sat and prayed with a lovely friend of mine and felt freed afterwards to stop fasting. It feels like i've let it go into God's hands now, which i guess is always one of His aims. I also commissioned an amazing prayer-warrior type lady in our community to pray for the issue and she apparently did some battling with curses over it (!) and felt that they had now gone. So i guess that we now wait and see. Thankfully i now feel really chilled about that!
Horray for good community!!!
I'll keep you posted!

I'm having an interesting time with God at the moment, trying to figure out why something is not happening. i don't know if it's because it's not something that God's hand is on, therefore not flourishing and i should let it go, or because it's a spiritual warfare thing and so i need to pray and fast more. I wonder how you know! I have a feeling it's the latter, so i am embarking upon a ramadan style fast, where you eat dinner eat night, for a while. I think God' suddenly got serious about it all and has upped the stakes.

We got back from our holiday on Monday and then lazed around on Tuesday. A nice way to break yourself back into being home i think! We had a great time away - Birmingham, London, Harrogate, Edinburgh, Stirling castle, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, Glen Coe, Mull and Iona. i totally loved Scotland and have already started planning in my head the next time we can make it up to the beautiful lush green mountains. Today i came back to work, with a zillion emails and things to do. But i've got through the day well i think.
 
This morning on the way to work i was thinking about someone i knew and how they intimidated me slightly (this happens quite often!) whihc then means that i get a bit defensive and distant. Silly really. So i was thinking about it and felt a little nudge in my spirit, which i think was from God, saying that i needed to start seeking to find the good in all. Grace, who i work with is so good at this. I have far to come. But when i tried it with the person i was thinking of, it worked! Not scared or intimidated by them anymore and can start to have normal frienship with them. Cool hey!
 
We went to a Form conference for 3 days just before we went away, which was brilliant. I love being with bunches of people who are just totally in love with God, who listen to Him and really hear him and who are great at encouraging others. I so want to be more like that - a setter of the mood, rather than a mood-follower. Tom and i both came away really really excited about god's plans for Form in Bristol and His help in getting that underway.

Yippee! Finished Power Evangelism last night which was a good achievement. It's ages since i've actually finished a Christian book i've started. So now i move onto the next unfinished one - probably a CS Lewis or Eugene Peterson. Maybe i should just stick to easy-read novels! Anyhow, P.E. was great and telling Tom some of the Holy Ghost stories even put goosebumps up his arms. More of that God(goose bumps that is and stories of our own to tell)!

Last night we sat down in our little lounge and sang some songs to God together. It was a good thing to do and i think we will be doing more of it (eh Tom?!). Hopefully God will harden my fingers up a bit as they're killing me today!

We're off on holiday on Thursday evening. First to a conference near Birmingham about Form the new gap-year programme we are starting up as part of the form network across the UK, then to London for my lovely friend Claire's leaving party - she is emigrating with her husband out to Oz : ( then we are heading up to Scotland for a week's camping trip. Fun fun fun!! I'm not sure Tom is quite as excited as i about it all though. He's particularly not looking forward to midges, which there apparently are in abundance up there. Hmmm... Any ideas apart from long sleeved clothes permanently?

So, yesterday I picked up 'Power Evangelism' by John Wimber and Kevin Springer once again, in a last ditched attempt to try and finish it. (I am so bad at starting things and not finishing them - very short attention span and quick to be bored.) Anyway, it's suddenly got to the more interesting section which isn't all theory and I came across something that I found has made me very thoughtful and something which kind of hooks in a bit with what I’ve been pondering on recently to myself. It's quite long, but worth a read:

“Before taking a closer look at how personal signs (which he describes before as being restoring the sight to the blind, casting out demons and evil spirits, healing sick people, making the lame walk, cleansing lepers, restoring hearing to the deaf, taking up poisonous serpents, raising the dead, speaking in tongues, calming storms, feeding thousands, drinking deadly poison and not being affected by it) enhance evangelism, I want to point out the significant relationship between them and social signs like care of the poor and liberating the oppressed. Social justice is at the very heart of the gospel. Jesus stated his mission in Luke 4:18-19: 'to preach good news to the poor...to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour'. In he Old Testament, the 'year of the Lord's favour' was the Year of Jubilee, in which debts were to be cancelled, slaves freed, land redistributed (Lev 25). Jesus announced the impending establishment of an eternal Jubilee.
This was fulfilled in the kingdom that Jesus brought. It is a kingdom in which 'justice roll(s) on like a river, (and) righteousness like a never-failing stream’ (Amos 5:24), a kingdom that ‘upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry’ and ‘sets prisoners free’ (Ps 146:7).
Jesus saw the people he preached to and healed as ‘harassed and helpless’ victims of injustice who were powerless to help themselves (Matt 9:35-6). He linked his healing ministry with ministry to the poor, because he saw both as ‘bringing justice’. (Matt 11:5, 12:15-21). In the Sermon on the Mount he pronounced blessing on those who hungered and thirsted for justice (Matt 5:6). He also gave his disciples a clear mandate to act for social justice: ‘I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisee and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt 5:20). Obedience to God requires private righteousness and standing for righteousness in the world (Matt 25:31-46)
As we stand for social justice we testify to the presence of the kingdom, and our evangelistic efforts are empowered. Peter Wagner’s categories of ‘social signs’ (preaching the good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captive, liberating the oppressed, instituting the Year of Jubilee) and ‘personal signs’ do not stand in opposition to one another. In fact, as we go forth preaching the gospel and standing for social justice, the Holy Spirit breaks through in signs and wonders.” (pages 163-164)

I don't know about you, but i am longing for some empowered stuff to happen. Maybe i've been trying to work it out in the wrong place...

Been a while since i've written - busyness has taken over i think...

Last weekend Tom and i spent a lot of time thinking and hearing about money and how best to look after/be a trustee of what God has given us. It's resulted in a lot of changes in our finances and probably a good dose of confirmation of what i'd been thinking for a while. It's interesting what a non-topic it is for a lot of people though, one of those things you just don't really talk about. Maybe that's why we should talk about it all the more!

Otherwise, things have been pretty busy with sign language classes (animals, jobs, days, months and a bit of calendar time), the night van, running housegroup temporarily for a month, lovely americans coming to visit, helping friends dig gardens and the seeing other friends who were back for a short spell after both having moved abroad! Hopefully this week will be a bit quieter.

I have started reading through Isaiah. Interesting book - i think i need to read it all to get a better all round perspective on it. At the moment God's seeming pretty mean towards everyone with destruction, death and much misery everywhere!

If any of you fancy praying, my lovely 78 year old granny's a bit sick at the moment so shooting some thoughts upwards would be appreciated. Cheers!

On Saturday i had my 30th birthday party - a big BBQ with all my favourite people. What a treat! Turning 30 hasn't been the traumatic crisis-enducing event i thought it may be, which is a relief. I did psend most of last year getting my head round it and i also think being married to a man 4 and a bit years younger than me definitely helps!

There was also the city farm carnival/festival round my nieghbourhood over the weekend, which drew every single hippy person in the whole of bristol to it. It made me realise i'm such a wanna-be hippy person and not really at all the genuine article. But maybe that's ok. I can just create my own genre of hippyism i think : )

We just found the first flower on our lavender this morning. a good moment.

At the end of my road, in the hippy, new age section, there is a city farm. I had never been to one of these before moving to where i do now and i'm finding it such a wonder. each day i walk past the HUGE pig rolling about in mud, the goats trying to oust each other off the ramp that's in their pen, ducks eating grass, sheep baaing, other pigs snuffling round and the piglets eating out of their trough whist standing in it(very funny to hear their clicky little feet and toes on the metal).

Then, to get to work, i carry on past the farm to walk up through to alotments. It's been a joy to see the crops progress each day through the year, from simple dirt rectangles to heaps of potatoes, runner beans, strawberries, onions and even a flower garden grow up from nothing.

I love where i live.

I have just read this Turning Tap Water into Sea Water and am astounded that a country as rainy as ours can't get it right when it comes to water storage. I'm sure there must be an easier way than taking it out of the sea (Dubai are startiong to see the consequences of this where loads of their marine life is dying as a direct result)! Maybe one big drainpipe from scotland and wales should be built - there must be enough rainwater there to keep us going for years!!!

PS Sign language was brilliant last night. I cna now tell you how many aunts, uncles, sisters (the sign for which is my favourite. I looks like you're scratching your nose!), brothers, cousins, parents and grandparents i have. Fun fun fun.

what's new? not heaps - lots more exciting plants have arrived our garden courtesy of my mum and sister; the sunflowers are looking like sunflowers now and the roses have bloomed. it's so exciting being able to go out each day and see something new. tom and i stroll each morning and survey our land (even though it's not really ours) and get excited about it all.

we went to cambridge over the weekend in order to catch up with my family a bit. it was pretty cool to see them once i'd managed to de-speed. my head is so constantly full of a million things. i've tried to start spending 15 minutes every day or two in slince with God. our spare room is becoming my little space for hanging out with him, which i like lots. hopefully when people come and visit it will be like that for them too. i wonder if the Spirit dwells in places anymore? i guess he shouldn't do after the temple got destroyed (hence no more 'sacred ground' in reality, despite what people say). I guess he does what he likes though. It's weird how some places do seem to be way calmer and more peaceful though, sometimes God seems even more tanglible in them. what's that all about!

enough ramblings. i must away to go to our sign language class : )

yet another good realisation! now that i have no inspiration or desire of my own to muster up to do things, it mean sthat i can only rely on God for it! maybe it's all just a part of his big plan : )

Our garden looks great - poppies, roses about to come out, beans climbing poles, tomoatoes and strawberries growing happily, sunflowers on the way. I love it!! Someday soon my lifelong dream of becoming like the Goodlife people will be fulfilled! Just call me Babs...

Last night a lovely friend pointed out to me that if i scrolled down on my blog a little bit i would see one of the possible causes behind suddenly starting to feel this way - the 'dangerous' prayer one which asked God to make me hunger for him the way i do food when fasting if i wasn't walking close to him. Hmmm... I guess that sheds a bit of light, but it doesn't make it go away! Still needing to do someting about it, but thinking that maybe it's God prompting me makes it seem much nicer somehow : )

Today i am stuck by how much i have fallen into the trap of living out of my own strength. Talking to someone yesterday on the phone and realising how God is a part of everything they do, every bit of planning they do for what they lead at church, involved in all processes of their life, i was humbled into admitting to God that i was rubbish at praying and great at relying on myself. I guess that must be the biggest form of pride that there is. It's so easy to fool yourself i think and maybe it's time i stopped and really saw what my spiritual life is really like. Hopefully it'll scare me into being active!

Sorry Lord for not letting you be my Lord and for thinking i can do it myself and that in my human strength i can pull things together. thanks that you constantly display who you are and it's no more evident than when our earthly plans fail. Help me.

Today is a fasting day (see Bristol Vineyard's 50 days series) and i was thinking about how cool it would be if each time i wasn't waling along with God i would feel hunger pangs for him in the same way i do when i don't have food.

I think i will ask him if he can fix it. Maybe it's one of those 'dangerous to pray' prayers, but onwards and upwards...

Yesterday my goldfish called Keith died.

It was such a sad day. Even though he's just a goldfish i'd grown quite fond of him, as had Tom. He'd spent a few days at the surface of the water and then on sunday morning we found him at the bottom, not breathing heaps and covered in a weird black dots. So we dashed off to the pet shop and by the time we got home with something which could have remedied him, he'd died. I cried and we buried him at the bottom of the garden. He looked so tiny.

I was amazed all over again at the amazingly intricate way that things are made. How something so small could swim, breathe under water, eat, think (yes they do apparently!), interract with other fish. Such a big bunch of effort went into creating something that small that was going to have no significant impact on the earth aside from keeping us amused while he fought off our other goldfish to the food. god is good.

So, i have discovered a couple of new things about Tom over the weekend:
1. he really enjoys watching snooker (oh yes, i know all the number values of the different coloured balls now, and that Ronnie O'Sullivan won the wordl championship!)
2. that he doesn't mind handling worms - a real bonus in my case as i loath them. He purposefully dug some up in edingurgh from a whopper compost heap as you need special worms for composting - the red tiger worms. They prefer that environment apparently!

We had a great time in Edinburgh over the weekend having a Hope family reunion for Tom's granny's 90th. Then we drove home via the length of Hadrian's wall and Durham cathedral. In the cathedral we joined in with the afternoon evensong which happened to be a special Easter one where you process to different stations around the church with the choir and think and sing and listen and move and look at different bits of art and sculptures. It was a very refreshing time, although a little hard to get into at first. I think it took me a long while to calm things down inside my head, all the thoughts that generally whizz around there and then all the objections to the service as there were lots of people who seemed to be there on show. Finally it was a peaceful, cotemplative time though and i liked it very much. I think i need to spend more time doing things like that as it's definitely one of the ways i connect with god.

On Monday we watched Master and Commander with some lovely friends, which was fab. A good swash-buckling tale of the high seas.